Art Antwerp: In Conversation With The Beast: Revisited | Thonk Tank, Art Antwerp.
2026
IN CONVERSATION WITH THE BEAST: REVISITED
Multidisciplinary: Photography, Video Installation, Performance alongside Ursula Marcussen.
“In an imploding world where nothing seems secured to the floor, we ask ourselves, is shit hitting the fan? Has there been any transcendence or enlightenment in the promised land?
The moral high ground has turned on us. What are we supposed to do?”
The moral high ground has turned on us. What are we supposed to do?”
Sit, Snail, Objects, Reach, Wall 2026
Exhibition Photography: Blanket Johan Manuel De Mora
The performance takes place at Thonk Tank with an installation projecting the live feed of a Bosch security camera, which is available to the public to handle and point, or simply observe.
Exhibition Photography: Blanket Johan Manuel De Mora
The Beast takes it upon itself to play with it during performing and attempts to hand it over to any one willing to participate. As the tension of such a transaction is usually deemed tense, the Beast remains masked but intentional and gentle.
My goal was to allow interpretation of the mask to roam free and to prove that we are not at all safe from each other’s faces. This is inspired by writer and theorist Brandon Labelle in his lectures on the other and such concepts of liminality and attention.
This is a full circle performance and photographic series of the concept of the beast previously photographed by Ursula Marcussen and myself. In this series, the Beast, an entity born out of aggression and trauma, has reached peace and therefore invites the public to join on a calmer side of exposure and light, yet combining its inherent tension and abstraction with the movement within the space and the live feed of the camera.
In Conversation With The Beast: Revisited 2026
Photographic series by Ursula Marcussen
Colombia
2021
‘COLOMBIA’
A cybershot photography series during a three month visit to Medellin, Colombia.
During this three month period I tried to photograph on a small cybershot in black and white, barely in color. The results were tender photographs, some failed yet compulsive and interesting examples of making the system work. The following were the last two pictures I took, before it shut down completely on the heights of Medellin’s valley, on my way to the airport with my father.
Downtown Medellin.
Then a morning, in a finca. I seemed to only be able to talk with two young kittens, and my bed.
My dreams were stronger than the city. I was not protected. Respect was only for the hesitant and civil:
“indígena,
indigente”.
Dreams went on.
‘In Conversation With The Beast’ | Performance, Photographs by Ursula Marcussen & Mixed Media Poetry | For Gentle Them’s 3 Day Manifestation works
2022
IN CONVERSATION WITH THE BEAST
Multidisciplinary: Performance, Photography & Mixed-Media Art Direction
In Conversation With The Beast came as a conflict and the concept of confrontation, trauma and liberation. The characters which by fate are chained to each other, confront each other and try to survive. The performance acts as a break into the spectator’s personal space and into their minds, attempting to bind them to the intensity of universal and/or familiar trauma. The guardian dressed in white, the symbol of confrontation takes the traumatized and dark inner self to a lighter space of patience and sentience. This performance was developed, directed and desgined by Ursula Marcussen and myself.
The photographs are a parallel connection to the performanc as a kindred, positive aspect in the acceptance of expressing aggressive energy. Seeking with curiosity the poetic and the child-like self.
Photography
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Subbacultcha Collectibles
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2020
PhotographyOn ︎ Subbacultcha : “We will offer you a weekly dosis of art. Every week an artist will create, in response the artists that preceded. The possibilities? Endless. 20 artists and musicians will produce 20 unique pieces of art and music over a period of 5 months. All Subbacultcha members will receive new art every week, delivered to their mailbox or doorstep. Become a member here.
Collectible: Lucciana Bolivar
“I’m complacent when I stand in between” was the thought when writing Raven’s lines in public. The texts have aligned to chosen spaces as small details but somehow grand gestures that fortified themselves in my mind. Their tangibility and their sight is a consolidation of fantasies for the Collectibles project.
ROLLEIFLEX WORKS
lucila novoa
2022
Portraiture series for Rotterdam based artist Lucila Novoa for ‘from yellow to brown (un)measured against a white background ‘ (2022)
Project descriptions from multiple stated sources.
from yellow to brown (un)measured against a white background - a new performative work inspired by José Esteban Muñoz’s (1967-2013) ‘The sense of Brown’ and ‘all about love’ by bell hooks (1952 -2021). I invited Ellen Mary Rooijakkers and Lucciana Bolivar to be part of a transformative process of ‘displacement’, its meaning and manifestation.
from yellow to brown (un)measured against a white background exhibition view. image credit: jhoeko.
In lucie draai’s work, displacement is key and she investigates all its connotations: the loss of a native place and environment, or a literal displacement, voluntarily or unintentionally, and thus ‘movement’. From her personal history of adoption from Colombia to the Netherlands, displacement has set in motion an irreversible process, in which questions about origin and identity remain unanswered, because crucial information is missing and therefore continuous movement may be the only constant and reliable factor.
For ‘from yellow to brown (un)measured against a white background’, lucie invited her dear friend Ellen Mary Rooijakkers to design a costume for the performance to take place in Daily Practice. Ellen has made five ephemeral and literally layered garments from tulle, transparent but at the same time quite stiff material, each in a different (skin)tone.
lucie draai asked Lucciana Bolivar as a queer person of color to take analog portrait photos, over a 24-hour period; a conscious choice to look beyond the white, patriarchal, normative gaze.
Lucciana spent an evening, night, morning and afternoon with lucie, her partner and their pets. An intimate and realistic portrait on a hot, oppressive summer day.
novoa series of 5 medium size analog photos made with a Rolleiflex 3.5 camera. Printed on Fuji color Crystal Archive photographic color paper, matt, 180 gr. 40 x 40 cm image size ( additional 3,5 cm white spacer) Edition 5 + 2 AP. Photos taken by Lucciana Bolivar in collaboration with lucie draai. Printed by Fotolab Amsterdam. Image credit: jhoeko.
